Well, dear readers, epiphanies are wonderful things. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, epiphanies are wonderful things and I had me a doozy last night. If you’ve been following the saga of this book you know I was going into a difficult section. I knew I wanted to really tell the story of my last days at the record label I created. There was no real way of not doing that, because a) it’s an integral part of my life, and b) it just made an interesting story. Once I got past that, once we got to the events that would cause me so much grief for a couple of years, well, I just sat here writing it and writing it and as I wrote it I didn’t like writing it because it just felt so damn negative to go on and on about it. I’d already figured out that I was going to breeze through those two years in which I’d be talking about the lawsuit and what it did to me. And I suddenly became very resistant to it, and not just because it would be unpleasant to revisit.
The first part of the epiphany was pulling my book Rewind off the shelf, and rereading the first part of it for the first time since I’d written it. As some know, that book was written only a year after the lawsuit had been settled. Everything was fresh in my mind to write a nice fictional mystery story. As I read, all the timelines came back to me and I began making lots of notes. And as I began making lots of notes I just said to myself, “Myself, I’ve written this before. I don’t want to write it again.” But I couldn’t get around the fact that it happened and how could I just ignore it? I took a hot shower to think about all of it. And the minute I got in there, part two of the epiphany arrived – and it was so simple and so right. I just said to myself, “Myself, for cryin’ out loud, this isn’t a book about a lawsuit. This is a book about survival and rebirth and reinvention, that’s what this book is about. It’s about the positive, not the negative.” And instantly I was freed from the whole thing that was bothering me. I didn’t need to dwell on the lawsuit. That happened. I’ll bring it up now and then and talk about the end of it. But what was interesting was how I dealt with everything – by starting this site, by using humor, by finding other projects instantly, by not letting other people control my life with their crap. That’s the book I was trying to find and I found it.
Last night, I passed page 500 of this manuscript. I’ve just finished Benjamin Kritzer, this site has just gone live, we’ve just done the DVD transfer for The First Nudie Musical, and 2002 has just begun. And I suspect in about thirty pages this book will be finished because I will now spend a little time talking about the good things that happened between 2002 and 2005, not really dwelling on any of them for more than a page or two. There are two amusing anecdotes I’ll tell about the end of the lawsuit, just because they’re fun, but I did a lot of stuff in that three years and it’s all fun and positive, even though I was being put through a kind of hell. I was so happy with my epiphany that I ate a Cherry Ripe.
I think I wrote over thirty pages yesterday, so there’s not much day to talk about – I got up, revised, wrote ten pages, went to the bank, ate, picked up a small package, came home, wrote another fifteen pages, watched a Maigret film, wrote some more, had my epiphany, and rewrote an entire section to set in motion what the rest of the book will be.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I am exhausted and in need of a good night’s beauty sleep.
Today, I shall hopefully arise after a good night’s beauty sleep. I shall then finesse and there is a LOT to finesse, after which I shall begin new pages. I’m sure I’ll take a break or three, but it’s my intention to write up until I leave to have dinner with the family Hollis. After that, I may or may not write some more.
Tomorrow I’ll be printing out a LOT of new pages for muse Margaret to peruse. Yes, the muse will peruse. I’m really hoping she likes these pages, because they’re sort of critical. If she has things that don’t feel write, I know I’ll be changing them. I’ll also write and then the New York singer and Lanny Meyers will arrive and we’ll begin mapping out the act we’re doing. We’ll put together a quick version because she has two dates coming up in early February. She’s here from Monday to Thursday and we’ll be working every afternoon after my writing for the day is done. It’s so hard to believe that I’ve been writing this book for only three weeks. That’s pretty much the week, other than assigning songs for the Kritzerland show and getting the singers their stuff, which I have to do by Tuesday as our first rehearsal is Friday.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, finesse, write, write, write, have dinner with the family Hollis, and write. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had my wonderful epiphany.